“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
The Huffington Post recently published an article from a current law student. It is a gleaming sunray on a thunderous day. An anomaly in an overly negative flow of law news and commentary. The message? Be a human.
The author, Michael Shammas, posits that law students funnel themselves into a very narrow path. It kind of makes sense. From the beginning of undergrad, future law students largely choose political science or something similar to major in because that is the “pre-law” degree. They are limiting themselves from the beginning. For those who have chosen to pursue law later in life, the limiting comes once they get to law school.
Once in school, students are competing with each other and choosing narrow areas of law to study. According to Shammas, this creates a life of competing and studying. Law students begin to lose pieces of themselves. Shammas likens it to boot camp: the process of breaking someone down and rebuilding him or her in a desired likeness. And the collateral damage includes a lot of different things, like hobbies, social outings, and even relationships.
But this is not necessary, says Shammas. Akin to many other professions and general life situations, if we lose the special, unique qualities that make us who we are, we lose ourselves. We each serve a valuable role in the world’s puzzle, and law students aren’t exempt from that.
Shammas charges readers to leave law school not as attorneys but as humans who happen to be attorneys. Instead of some kind of attorney robot from the future, the world needs attorneys who have passions and desires and love themselves and others. And I say that is a damn good idea.
As Carl Sagan, a scientist with the heart of a poet, once said, “Everyone of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious.”
Source: The Huffington Post
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